Instead of a standard obituary, our tribute to Wayne takes a somewhat unorthodox approach just as Wayne could be somewhat unorthodox. How many people do you know who sit on their front porch serenading neighbors with Cajun songs while playing his accordion? They probably didn’t realize they were being regaled with songs by the one and only “Squeezedaddy” (aka Professor Wayne Leibel) of Snapperhead Zydeco band fame, a Cajun swamp pop zydeco band. As Wayne said about his musical side gig versus being a tenured Biology professor at Lafayette College by day: “I’m on a mission from God to prove that this instrument [the accordion] is worth something!”
Wayne’s life was filled with contrasts and creativity on many fronts. We begin with Wayne’s own words written in Venezuela on January 6, 1997:
Lost in the stars, lost in the ozone, gone.
Where do souls go.
Where do souls go that you need back.
Although Wayne was a biologist, teacher, musician, an avid tropical fish hobbyist, and aquarium historian, most people only knew him in one or two of those domains. So the totality of Wayne was not visible to many. And that was like being close to a bright star and not realizing the star is part of a complex constellation.
But he was a space traveler who easily moved among the stars—among all those domains. The common thread was his love of people and of critters. Wayne probably didn’t fully know the profound effect he had on uncountable numbers of people through his freely-shared knowledge, and the unwavering attention he gave you in a conversation. And his effect on scores of people with the sheer sense of curiosity, dedication, and even mischief that he brought to his many endeavors.
Some people reading this might be surprised by Wayne’s more ethereal perspective in the words above. And some people may not know of his many down-to-earth accomplishments highlighted here in this partial, merely representative list:
* B. A., Dartmouth College; PhD in Biology, Yale University.
* Chair, Lafayette College Biology Department; Kreider Professor of Biology.
* Active member, American Cichlid Association (ACA): Fellow; recipient, Jordan Retrospective Lifetime Achievement Award (ACA’S highest honor); member and Chair, Board of Trustees; editor, Buntebarsche Bulletin.
* Contributor/columnist/photograph contributor, technical editor, and editor of innumerable scientific and hobbyist publications, including the much-loved “Wayne’s World” column in Tropical Fish Hobbyist, and “Fish-Kidz” column for kids in Aquarium Fish Magazine (AFM).
* Speaker/presenter at innumerable conferences, workshops, and local societies.
* Various other recognition and awards, including the Northeast Council of Aquarium Societies (NEC) Betty Mueller Lifetime Achievement award for dedication to the NEC and to the hobby.
Wayne was raised in West Hartford, CT, the only child of Hilda and Archie (Arthur) Leibel. But Wayne made no secret of the fact that he was adopted. And near the end of his birth mother’s life (Jackie), he found her and had a reunion that meant the world to him. However, Hilda and Archie were always mom and dad, and he was grateful for the gifts of love, caring, and education they gave him.
Wayne was born on August 5, 1951 and died at home of a heart attack on May 16, 2021, about three months shy of his 70th birthday. He left behind an eclectic set of cousins, including the Edelstein’s, Kraus’s, and Saul’s in the United States, and Mariana Spravkin in Argentina, as well as students, colleagues, and friends too numerous to count.
Wayne’s ashes will be spread per his wishes.
A gathering to honor Wayne is being planned at Lafayette College in Easton, PA for sometime mid-August to early September 2021. Watch this space for details.
We all love you, Wayne. You will be greatly missed. Rest In Peace.
LAFAYETTE COLLEGE INVITATION
The Lafayette College Biology Department invites you to share your recollections and memories to honor and celebrate the life and career of our colleague, mentor, and friend, Professor Wayne Leibel.
WHEN: Friday September 17th, 2021 beginning at 7:00 pm EST.
WHERE: Zoom Live (see link below)
SIMULTANEOUS IN-PERSON GATHERING: Rockwell Integrated Science Center rooms 260 & 262. An opportunity for in-person shared remembrances during and after the Zoom with refreshments after the Zoom. To attend in person, RSVP to Dr Elaine Reynolds,
reynolde@lafayette.edu BY SEPTEMBER 6th, 2021.
You can join us via Zoom or in person as you prefer. If you plan to Zoom only, you need not RSVP, just use the Zoom link below to attend. (Be sure you have the most current version of Zoom on your device.)
If you would care to share a brief (<3 minute) sentiment or tribute, please let Dr Nancy Waters know BY SEPTEMBER 6, 2021, watersn@lafayette.edu; this will allow us to plan for including you in the program.
If you cannot attend but would like to offer a written reflection, please send it via email to John Drummond, drummonj@lafayette.edu BY SEPTEMBER 6, 2021 to request it be included.
If you wish, you may donate to the Professor Wayne Leibel Memorial Prize Fund, building towards establishing an endowment for supporting students in perpetuity. (See link below.)
We hope you can participate, and we look forward to seeing you as we commemorate Wayne’s array of diverse contributions.
ZOOM:
https://lafayette.zoom.us/j/98384387260
DONATE:
https://securelb.imodules.com/s/1699/interior.aspx?sid=1699&gid=2&pgid=446&cid=1122&dids=116&bledit=1&sort=1
Gregory Tapler
May 25, 2021 at 8:25 am
Wayne, Mr. Zydeco, Mr. Fish, Mr. Sqeezebox. Man, you were full of creative, loving and beautiful energy. I’m so grateful for our journey together and I’m very sad the world has lost such a beautiful man. I can imagine you’ll appear to many as a beautifully colored Cichlid or a wondering man playing the squeezebox just singing to his own tune and astonishing the people around him. Much love to you brother on your journey onward. ~Greg
Dave Korba
May 25, 2021 at 10:36 am
Peace to you on your journey, Wayne. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us. Blessings.
Rebecca Vauter
May 25, 2021 at 3:37 pm
Wishing you peace on your onward travels. Thank you for all the ways in which you lit up this world. You won’t be soon forgotten.
Rochelle Freedman
May 25, 2021 at 4:07 pm
This one’s for you Wayne: “Ontology recapitulates Phylogeny” ( Private Joke) While we were mostly on line friends.. our conversations and connection were so very special and meaningful in so many ways. May your journey into the Light and Love of the cosmos be spectacular.
Janine Banks
May 26, 2021 at 2:32 pm
Wayne, thank you for just being you. A special person in my heart, and the heart of so many others, you are missed. Play on.
Anthony Mazeroll, Ph.D.
May 26, 2021 at 5:43 pm
If I ever become half the man you were, I would have lived a wondrous life. We will miss your smiling face and I will still remember the last time we talked in person. We will miss your animal posts and all your words or wisdom.
Roxanne (Rubboard Roxy) Klett
May 26, 2021 at 8:17 pm
There was never a time my thoughts of Wayne didn’t bring a smile to my face. Every Mardi Gras season we played happy music with Snapperhead Zydeco. Wayne hated the drive to Hopewell but, he loved the music and his bandmates. He always provided encouragement. Thanx for such great memories Wayne. “Show the angles how to play the accordion; zydeco-style”. ❤
Kathleen Weber
May 26, 2021 at 9:31 pm
Wayne Leibel-professor, musician, & cichlid enthusiast- was also a really great neighbor. He sat out on his porch swing almost daily- chatting with neighbors & friends, & was always laughing at my dog Maize’s antics from across the street.
Occasionally he’d play his accordion out there on the porch, and, although it’s been a while, sometimes we’d also get to hear his awesome voice belting out a tune. 💗 what a wonderful sound to hear from your windows at night!
It’s been a really sad & weird chunk of days trying to get used to not seeing him out there on his porch every day. 😢
I’ll miss him so much (already do!)
Rest in peace, dear neighbor!
Mitch Kroner
May 27, 2021 at 6:42 am
Wayne, Greg Hahn, and myself were college roommates at Dartmouth College from 1969-1973. We have remained close friends all these years. Wayne was one of a kind, in so many ways. Rest easy, Rest in peace, my friend. You will be missed by many.
Richard Leitman, Ralph Urdaz
May 27, 2021 at 10:38 am
Wayne was an elder in the Mankind Project (MKP) and we shared several weekend retreats together. We will always remember his happy, jovial smile and what he contributed to our lives. He introduced us to Zydeco and his amazing accordion playing. He was happiest when performing for his friends. Rest In Peace our beautiful friend.
Mary L. Hedblom, Ph.D.
May 27, 2021 at 5:02 pm
Wayne and I both started teaching at Lafayette College at the same time (1983), and became fast friends. I loved him and I profoundly mourn his loss. I had looked forward to seeing him again! I got to see all sides of Wayne and met lots of his friends and colleagues and watched him create his magic, as a musician, professor/teacher, speaker and friend. Wayne was a sexy accordion player, boisterous singer, fabulous teacher, brilliant researcher, great and entertaining writer, lover of fish (his goal was always to keep them so happy and healthy that they made babies!) and a great friend. His smile was something else. Not to mention, I loved all his biology-related posts on Facebook!
An interesting little story: Shortly after I got married in 1999, my husband and I were in his brother’s house in Milwaukee, WI, when I saw a “Tabasco Cat” cassette with the label written in what I knew was Waynes writing! It turns out that my husband’s brother (Craig Berg), a Curator at the Milwaukee County Zoo, had met Wayne in Brazil at a fish conference…and talked to Wayne about accordion music all night! It is a small world, indeed! Over the years, Wayne visited me, my hubby and his brother several times, when various cichlid conferences were in the Chicago area. Great fun was had by all. Rest in peace. Love, Mary
Mary L Hedblom
May 27, 2021 at 5:05 pm
Thanks so much!
Alan
May 28, 2021 at 3:09 pm
I knew Wayne when he was a little boy. We spent several days in Connecticut looking for fossils. He introduced me to JRR Tolkien. Sorry you are gone.
Chuck Davis
May 30, 2021 at 3:55 pm
No one can replace Wayne. A great ambassador of our hobby. I know Wayne since 1975. He always impresses me.
Nancy Lloyd
May 30, 2021 at 7:06 pm
I was so sorry to learn of Wayne’s passing. I hadn’t met him in person because of the COVID-19 quarantine but was looking forward to it. We had talked by phone and emailed a lot. He was humble, sweet and generous. When he learned my mother nicknamed my little sister and me Cisco and Pancho after the 1950s tv program “The Cisco Kid,” he sent me a gift of a DVD of the programs. What a blast from the past! I last heard from him on April 21st and asked how he was doing, how he liked retirement, was he coming out of isolation. He had recently and sadly lost at least two of his parrots. Their monogamous partner would screech for days. It was hard on him. I was really looking forward to meeting him in person, and I’m sad that I never got to. Wayne, you are a star among the stars.
Steve Edelstein
June 1, 2021 at 2:35 am
I’ve known Wayne his entire life and all but eight years of mine. As his first cousin I had the honor (?) of attending his bris. I have a lifetime of memories of many happy times including summers with him and his parents (my Aunt Hilda and Uncle Archie) in West Hartford, CT. Of all my memories I keep going back to a time when he was about three and I was eleven: I showed him how to make a fort out of his blocks while we played on the floor of his room. He was so curious and interested and looked up to me like a brother. We were both only children. Wayne my brother, I love and miss you. What I wouldn’t give to hear you say I love you one more time.
Anna Edlund
June 1, 2021 at 6:48 pm
The first time I heard Wayne play his accordion and sing, it was a revelation! I was his colleague in the Biology department and learning Banjo. Wayne joked that if only we could find a bagpipe-playing biology professor to join us at Lafayette, then the three of us all in one department (accordion, banjo, and bagpipe) might just make the earth wobble on its axis.
Losing you now, Wayne, has made so many of us wobble.
Mary Bailey
June 3, 2021 at 3:59 am
People like Wayne should live forever, as they bring so much to others. So sorry he’s gone.
Harry and Grace Siegel
June 3, 2021 at 8:03 am
Our entry into the cichlid world was because of Wayne’s interest in showing us how fascinating Cichlids can be. That was many, many years ago at the Lehigh Valley Aquarium club. We would always get to his lectures at the ACA Conventions and got to share a beer balls with Wayne and his friends. Everyone loved Wayne and everyone will miss him. Humanity lost a wonderful human and heaven gained an accordion-playing angel.
Penny Faul
June 5, 2021 at 11:56 am
My husband, Al and I met Wayne in the early 70’s. He was a regular speaker at the Northeast of Aquarium Societies, Annual Conventions. Including the very first convention in 1976. He was requested over and over again.
He danced to his own drummer and was a joy to be around. He is being missed by many.
God has taken him home, to continue have him share his fun and knowledge.
Mary Ellen Sweeney
June 6, 2021 at 10:27 am
Wayne was a wonderful human being. We met in ’87 at an Aquarium event and always looked forward to working together on his articles and columns in TFH. He was a very good friend to us all. He did not like driving, especially bridges, but he overcame all that to go everywhere… dropping everything & arriving in record time when Kullander visited. What a time we had! Missing you in the world.
Linda McKesson
June 9, 2021 at 10:37 am
Thank you for your humor and brilliance, we met at Stan Sung’s home in Lagina Niguel but of course I already knew about you. You shared your love of antique aquaria, talked cichlids and friends, laughed and a great weekend overall. On Facebook we shared turtle posts and you had a way of finding the most profound animal posts that were enjoyed by many. I will miss that and their absence will remind me that you’re not here. Jesus is the Messiah; God is Creator. Rest in peace Wayne.
Lee Finley
June 17, 2021 at 12:47 pm
First, my condolences to the family and friends of Wayne. In addition to them the aquarium, music and academic worlds have lost a great person.
Wayne was a long time friend, a mentor (even when he didn’t know he was doing it), and a co-conspirator on fun projects (we co-wrote, produced and acted in a four act play and we even got to sing together once – with him, of course, playing the accordion). Our relationship had a long run and my life was, and is, better because of him.
Rest in peace friend.
Chris Moslow (aka Doc Mozz)
July 19, 2021 at 4:22 am
I’ve waited too long now as you were reviewing an article I was working at the time of your sudden passing…
Since our meeting in the early ’90’s, you always provided sage advice and humor when we talked. I became an ichthyologist because of mentors like you!
You’ve positively affected so many people along the way …but for me (and others too numerous to count), our hobby is richer and has kept a momentum, that if it weren’t for your enthusiasm, fishkeeping would have fizzled out! It may sound cleche but I know you are still keeping those around you sharp as a tack and providing a good story, a laugh and the confidence you always instilled here on earth.
Fair winds and following seas brother! …until we meet again.
Doc Mozz
Mary Hillebrenner
August 23, 2021 at 11:13 pm
You were in regular contact with me, which I sorely miss. We talked about what was going on in the USA, and how the future of our nation seemed to be falling apart. Beyond this, we both had a love of animals. Yours-aquatic, mine-land lubbers! Our Thanksgiving dinners and other times either eating at Terry’s or my home making culinary delights to delight the palate. Watching movies together. Your passing has really left a hole in my heart and my life. Don’t forget! Save me a place in heaven. With much admiration and love, Mary.
Lisa Lacroce Patterson ’86
September 10, 2021 at 8:13 pm
Wayne was a young and enthusiastic professor when I met him in what I believe was his first Microbiology class at Lafayette. He was clearly brilliant. I was not. A short time into the class, I told him that I needed to drop it because I found it so difficult, and because my schedule was very demanding that semester. He kindly replied, “Well, maybe you’ll pick it up again later.” I smiled and nodded, knowing that I never would. I got to tell him that story many years later, and he took it rather well. He didn’t take it personally!
I strangely ran into him in the mid-2000s at the theater I worked at in Princeton, NJ, where his band Snapperhead Zydeco had been hired to play at an opening night party. I was sooo surprised! And confused! Since when did my microbiology professor play the accordion in a zydeco band?
We happily stayed in touch for a while after that chance encounter, during which time I learned about his passion for cichlids. He was such a kind, open, creative, honest, intelligent, caring person, and I know he is very happy in heaven, where every day is Mardi Gras.